The beta tester's kit.

What we are testing

Stitch My Signature turns a signature or a typed name into a stitch file for a quilt label, in your browser, and nothing about your design leaves your device. I am testing three things on real machines.

• Whether the file loads and stitches on your machine and hoop.
• How the stitch styles look in thread at label sizes.
• Where the app confuses you.

The test sheets

Two stitch-out sheets here, and two lettering sheets further down. One thread each. Pick your machine and every link hands you the right file.

Your machine

Move the file to your machine on a USB stick, or send it to yourself. The same sheets are in the app under Designs.

New lettering, and a sheet to judge it on

The app letters a label six ways now: the two it started with, renamed, and four marked new in the Font list. I would rather judge them in thread than on a screen. Each lettering sheet stitches Betty Rose six times, once in each lettering, numbered down the left. Every line is set at the same lowercase height, the smallest the app offers, because small is where lettering fails first.

1. Schoolhouse. The plain print the app started with. It was called Print.
2. Standard Hand. The formal script the app started with. It was called Cursive.
3. Classic. New. A serif, like the type in a book, and the one I think most labels will want.
4. Casual. New. A quick hand, lighter and narrower on purpose.
5. Italic Classic. New. Classic on a slant, for a date or a dedication under a name.
6. Bank. New. The plainest, with the most open letters.

These two sheets are brand new. If a row stitches oddly, that is exactly what I want to hear. On the feedback page, write the numbers of the rows you could read easily, and the one you would put on a quilt.

Thread, needle, stabilizer

• Quilting cotton with a medium cutaway stabilizer, the way a label is made.
• 40 wt polyester or rayon, and a 75/11 embroidery needle.
• Turn on automatic jump trimming if your machine has it. Brother calls it jump stitch trimming, Janome jump thread trimming, Pfaff and Husqvarna automatic jump stitch trim.
• Do not resize or move the design. Center it and let it run.

What to look at

• The trim test, two short bars with a gap. Was the thread cut between them?
• The satin. Clean columns at all three widths, and does the fine one hold on the curve?
• The small letters. Crisp or lumpy?
• The signature in hand stitch. Does it still read like a hand wrote it?
• On the 5 × 7 sheet, do the filled squares pucker, and does your phone read the stitched code?
• On a lettering sheet, which numbered rows read easily at arm's length? Write their numbers on the feedback page.

How to send me a photo

1. Print the beta feedback page and fill it in with a pen. It asks for your name, machine and hoop, and what you saw.
2. Lay it beside your stitch-out and photograph both together, flat, in daylight. A close-up of the small letters helps.
3. The feedback form is on its way. Meanwhile, email it to hello@stitchmysignature.com with a few words on what stitched well and what broke.
4. Show it off if you like. Post it with #StitchMySignature, or bring it to your quilting group. With your say-so, it goes on the front page with your first name and machine.

David